Murfreesboro, Tenn. – After nearly two months, the Blue Raiders are back in the win column following a 14-5 win over the Owls of Kennesaw State.
MTSU head coach Derek Mason discussed the game, player performances, and more with the media. Here’s a recap of his press conference on Tuesday night.
Mason’s Opening Statement
“First of all, hats off to Coach Bohanon; his team is a tough football team. Our guys fought hard, our defense came to play, and we got our first conference win tonight; we needed that. I think our guys learned some stuff about themselves tonight. Nick Vattiato woke up at 2 AM dead sick, and I didn’t think he would play today, but we couldn’t stop him from playing, which is crazy. To see him come and play was pretty cool for the guys in that locker room. Twenty guys had tackles today; it was a ‘mind your business’ game; everyone had to mind their business and do their jobs.”
“We’ve got to play cleaner football, but I’m going to take an ugly win all day long, and I’m not going to apologize for it. This football team laid some foundation for themselves tonight because it’s hard to stop the bleeding when you don’t know what one fix will happen. Played good defense, scored two touchdowns the ugly way, but that’s okay.”
Mason on DC Brian Stewart calling plays from the box
“It’s not about me, but I’ve been in his position; I’ve been a play-caller, and to me, it’s much easier in the box to stay away from the panic on the field. Twelve men on the field, 11 men on the field, personnel groupings, sometimes you’ve got to pull yourself out to call the game. With technology now, you’re always talking to the safety; it’s not like old school where you had to relay it to a player through signals. It’s much easier to do it from up top, and I thought he did a flawless job of calling the game.
“He even looked at me after the game and said, ‘Yeah, man, let’s get some of this action.’ It was good.
Mason on stopping the run
“I thought what we did in the gameplan was make sure the inside backers keys were inside no matter if they got perimeter motion or anything coming in. Just keep your eyes on the box, we call it cube vision. Everyone else can clean if those guys keep their eyes on the box. When the QB tried to pull it several times, we had safeties waiting on them. It was just a mind-your-business job; guys did their 1/11 and did what they were supposed to do. It was fun to watch.”
Mason on what he learned about his team on Tuesday
“To be honest, we’re the 2024 version of the Bad News Bears, and I’ll take that anytime. We’re still learning how to win and do things the right way. People don’t see behind the scenes that these guys want to, but there’s a performance process; you can prepare all you want to, but when push comes to shove, you’ve got to do what your job says to do. It will elude you until we do that consistently, but tonight, it didn’t elude half the group.”
“I believe these guys got rewarded at the end of the day, so you know what that gives us? Confidence that you have a chance if you follow the process.”
Mason is on the team heading into next week
“The first thing I’m going to do is go to bed. We’re all going to go to bed, but the next thing after that is the training room. When you play two games in five days, there are some bumps and bruises; these guys feel it. The smartest thing we can do is give them the day off and slowly but surely get back into practice and prepare for a physical Jax State team. We are making sure these guys are mentally and physically right to play one of the top G5 teams in our conference.”
Mason on special team’s penalties
“The alignments have been the same all year, so we should go into a game and not be told there were issues. Usually, they’ll tell you the problem, but that didn’t happen. Those guys were a good crew, and I think they were on it. We must do a better job, but consistency must be across the board. You can’t go six games and have nothing called, and tonight there’s this list of things we’ve got to know mid-game; it can’t happen like that.”
Mason on Omari Kelly’s punt return TD
“He’s got to embrace it; he’s back there for a reason. The dude’s hands are spectacular, but you can tell that sometimes he gets in his head about it, but don’t do that; do what you’ve always been doing. If you aren’t comfortable, then fair catch it, but there were a couple of times tonight where he could’ve taken off with it and broken through.”
“It always takes the first one to make you hungry; that’s when you start to get greedy, and we don’t want to be reckless, but we want to be greedy. It was good to see him do some things tonight because when he gets vertical, dude can go.”
Mason on the two penalties that negated touchdowns
“It can’t happen. Again, when I looked at the call on Simon [Wilson], it was not even close. I don’t know what holding is anymore. All he did was body a dude up, and he’s driving him back, and the play ends up in a touchdown. I’m not trying to call anybody out, but it wasn't even close when we looked at it on instant replay.”
“We just have to do a better job, in my opinion, of flat-backing folks and moving the line of scrimmage because when you do, you don’t get those kinds of calls. I want to know the consistency level because you saw some things you didn’t see in other games tonight. I want to see what it is and ensure it’s fair on both sides.
